NINETEEN - OPERATIONAL PLAN

With the weapon came the stirrings of a plan. Soon the Wizards' Keep was abuzz with preparations. Since the Watchers were still unable to establish communication with Wiz and his party, the first order of business was to combine an attack on the Enemy with a rescue operation. In his or her own way everyone readied themselves for what was to come.

“So this is what the enemy stronghold looks like?” Kuznetsov asked Jerry as they walked down the stonewalled tunnel.

“Something like this. Only smaller and not as neat.”

The Russian sized up the space with the professional interest of an engineer who had been given the job of building the place—or a sapper who had the job of blowing it up.

Kuznetsov had wanted to see what the “battlefield” would look like. The closest thing Jerry could come up with was the cellars and storerooms under the Wizards' Keep. It wasn't that close to the tunnels beneath the City of Night, but Kuznetsov assured him it would help.

“Now there're a lot more levels and twists and turns,” Jerry added as Kuznetsov knelt down to examine the way the stones fit. He produced a knife and scratched at the space between the rocks, held the scrapings to his nose and sniffed them.

“But just this mortar? No concrete?”

Jerry thought for an instant. “I've never seen concrete in this World.”

Kuznetsov grunted, stood up, and then said something quickly to Vasily. The other Russian nodded and set off down the tunnel.

“And these lamps.” Kuznetsov indicated the magic glow light that floated above their head. This is standard illumination?”

“Yeah. What's Vasily doing?”

“We are seeing how close enemy can get before we see him. This is very important in urban combat.”

“This isn't exactly a city.”

Kuznetsov grinned. “I believe your saying is 'Close enough for government work.' “ He looked down the tunnel and motioned to his partner. Peering out past the edges of the light, Jerry couldn't see him, but apparently Kuznetsov could.

“Now he comes back hiding behind cover and in shadows,” Kuznetsov said without taking his eyes off the tunnel. “The way an enemy would approach.”

By straining his eyes Jerry thought he could detect an occasional flicker of movement down the corridor. Finally, when Vasily was almost on them he caught a glimpse of him sidling along a wall and whipping into an open storeroom.

“He's really good.”

“He was a specialist,” Kuznetsov said, and smiled as if he had made a joke.

There was an explosion of Russian from the storeroom and Vasily came charging out with no attempt to hide.

He pointed back to the room and spat out something long and complicated in Russian.

Kuznetsov whistled. “Da shto ve gavorete?”

“Po Pravda!” Vasily confirmed.

“What was that about?' Jerry asked.

The Russian looked at Jerry strangely. “Let us say we just discovered that our paths have crossed before, indirectly. You might even say that you are the ones who got us started in our present line of work.” He waved away Jerry's frown. “Never mind. It was another time and another country.”

The Russians were silent as they climbed the stairs from the cellar. They declined Jerry's offer of a warming drink.

“Comrade Major, do you realize what this means?” Vasily hissed in Russian as soon as Jerry turned the corner.

“It means we have solved another mystery my friend. Now we know how the computer disappeared from the airplane.”

Kuznetsov sighed and grinned. “It takes you back, does it not, to the days when the world was young, our hearts were pure and there was no problem in human relations which could not be solved by the application of sufficient quantities of high explosive?”

He sighed once more. “Life was so much simpler then.”

“Complexity?” Bal-Simba echoed in bewilderment.

“Complexity,” Taj repeated with a satanic grin. The weakness of all centralized systems is that they cannot handle complexity beyond a certain level.”

“And you are certain of this?”

He spread his hands. “It's inherent in the state equations. If we wanna give this boy indigestion we start by giving him a nervous breakdown.”

“What in the world are you doing?” Jerry asked as he walked into the workroom.

“Origami,” Taj said cheerfully. “Great way to relax.”

Jerry looked over the collection of cranes and other creatures scattered over the benchtop.

“Parchment's kind of scarce. We can't waste it on stuff like that.”

“Oh, it's not a waste,” Taj said cheerfully. Then he held up his latest creation. “See, here's a dragon.”

Jerry looked past the long-necked shape at the litter of parchment scraps on the table. “It's still not a very good use for parchment.”

Taj smiled evilly. “Wanna bet?”

The rhythmic scrape-scrape-scrape told Gilligan that Vasily was sharpening something. When he got close he saw it wasn't a knife or a sword. It was a small shovel with a two-foot handle. An entrenching tool in fact

“Where'd you find that?”

“Castle smith made it for me,” the Russian told him. He laid the stone aside and sighted down the shovel blade, turning it slightly so the light struck the edge. “Almost ready now.”

“Going to dig your way out of trouble?”

In a single cat-like motion Vasily twisted and hurled the entrenching tool overhand. It flew end-over-end and buried itself in a post twenty feet away with a twang. The shovel stuck there with its handle vibrating from the force of the impact.

“Good for digging, too,” The Russian said. Then he walked over and wrenched the blade out of the timber.

Gilligan nodded. “Where's Kuznetsov?”

Vasily inspected the edge of the blade critically. “With the big wizard,” he said without looking up.

Gilligan himself had spent a good part of the time trying to figure out how he could get into the battle. As a pilot with nearly two thousand hours in Air Force fighters he felt supremely confident. Unfortunately, riding a dragon takes a different skill set than flying an F-15.

Besides which, the dragons didn't like him. Every time he entered the aerie he was greeted by growls and roars from the monsters. Gilligan suspected that Stigi had been talking. Karin said that was impossible, but Gilligan knew better.

Of course planning was the major form of preparation.

“It is in our favor that nothing has tried strongly to breach the physical barriers,” Bal-Simba told the group assembled in his work room. “The Enemy has not had the opportunity to learn how to defend against it.”

“It seems to have put up defenses enough,” Dragon Leader remarked as he studied the magical map showing the known patrol routes from the City of Night

“We think that's more reflex than planning,” Jerry said “If you'll notice these tracks pretty much match the Dark League's patrolling when they controlled the city. But circumstances have changed and that leaves holes here,” he said as he stabbed a finger onto the map, “here and especially to the south.”

“What's more, they're not flying smart,” Gilligan said, “at least not from what the Watchers have seen.”

“We have not been allowed to test these fliers yet.” There was a note of reproach in Dragon Leader's voice.

“That will come soon enough,” Bal-Simba told him. “Meanwhile we do not want to, ah, 'tip our fingers.' “

“That's tip our hand,” Jerry corrected “Yeah, we want them dumb when we hit them.”

Bal-Simba caught his air group commander's expression. “Never fear, you will have the opportunity to test them very soon, but under controlled conditions.”

“Meanwhile,” Jerry said, “the basic plan for the main attack will be to lure him out over the Freshened Sea with a dummy strike and then hit from another direction.”

“Bakka Valley,” Gilligan said.

Kuznetsov nodded. “Koyuechno. We spoof them to show themselves and then the second wave eliminates them.”

Dragon Leader nodded “We can expect most of their air power to be drawn north, but that still leaves their ground defenses plus whatever they hold back for point defense.”

“Well, there's a trick we used on the second Schweinfurt raid,” Charlie said.

Gilligan did a quick calculation and gave Charlie a hard look.

The older man caught it. “Okay,” he amended. “Someone used it when the Eighth hit Schweinfurt the second time.”

Dragon Leader ignored the byplay. There is still the problem of the inner defenses.”

“We may just have to fight our way through those,” Bal-Simba said. “Expensive, I know.”

“Maybe we can come up with something as we go along,” Jerry added.

Dragon Leader looked thoughtfully at the map.